


Anti-Luthor

by leavethesky



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fuck Canon, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leavethesky/pseuds/leavethesky
Summary: Lena is trying to change the world, trying to face down the biggest threat to the earth and all humans: climate change. But the DEO can't stop seeing her as a threat. And she finds out the hard way that her best friend is also Supergirl who works for the DEO. I only write happy endings. They just have to go through hell to get there.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 37
Kudos: 208





	1. Chapter 1

Lena Luthor began the slow, terrible process of waking up, only to hear the sounds of what she at first assumed was Lionel and Lillian having one of their weekly blowouts. She used to hide in her room if she was awake, or pull the pillow over her head and factor primes if she was already in bed. Sometimes Lex would appear perched on her bed and the two of them would make up songs together or read each other stories. That was the Lex before though.

As Lena slowly crested another wave and failed to completely wake up, she realized two things: One, the voices didn’t belong to Lionel and Lillian, but several women, all of their voices familiar to her. And two, someone had given her a great deal of morphine and possibly anesthesia, which meant she was in a hospital. She was shivering with cold so probably yes to all of these things.

Fuck, she thought, but the arguing continued, getting louder. Oh, that was Dr. Ngo and that was… Secretary Albright? What were they doing here at the hospital? Maybe she was hallucinating. But that voice was…oh shit. Alex Danvers. And it all came back in a nauseating wave, or maybe that was the pain because it was breath-taking and overwhelming. But she was in a hospital in pain, which meant at least part of their plan worked, because she’d be dead otherwise. So why was everyone arguing?

Shut up, she thought and the room went quiet.

“Dr. Luthor?” That was Dr. Ngo, which meant at least she had one of the best doctors in the world on her side.

“Dr. Ngo?” she said and managed to even open her eyes a little. But that just revealed an angry Alex Danvers, and behind her….oh shit. Now it was really all coming back. Kara Danvers who was Supergirl who used their friendship to get intel that she then gave to the DEO who shot her right before she could enter the codes to stop Lex. No. No. No. She’d rather be back under the anesthesia.

“Wanna go home,” she managed to croak and tried to get out of the bed before a wave of pain slammed into her, her left arm felt like it was submerged in lava or acid and she was breathless with pain before the world went black.

When she became conscious again, the ceiling was moving above her, ugly flourescent lights like the yellow lines on the road, flashing off and on as they moved her… where? She tried to get up again, only to have a small brown hand gently press her chest back into the gurney.

“It’s okay, Lena.” said a voice that Lena knows so well. Malala. She started crying uncontrollably. It must be bad. Malala was supposed to be at Cambridge sitting her finals. “We’re getting you out of here. Dr. Ngo’s here too.”

“Lex’s swarm?” she managed to ask, and Malala apparently understood, because she tightened her grip on the hand that wasn’t on fire and nodded, tears in her eyes. “You did it, Lena. They shot you and you still stopped Lex. Those swarms are now working for us. They’ve already cleaned up the bay’s toxic algae bloom. You did it.”

“We did it,” Lena managed to mumble as the pain in her left arm spiked. She tried not to react, but her body nearly folded in half with the pain.

“Dr. Luthor, how bad is the pain?” Dr. Ngo asked, consulting something on a tablet. Lena could hear the sound of a helicopter and took a deep breath to stop the panic attack. She hated flying. She hated helicopters. But they all knew this about her so it must have been necessary.

Her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t answer.

“That bad?” Dr. Ngo didn’t wait for an answer, just tapped something onto the tablet and a feeling of incredible warmth enveloped Lena. It was the kind of warmth she associated with being near Kara Danvers for the past year. The pain in her arm wasn’t gone, but it was so far away that she relaxed slightly. She was flying. Fuck Supergirl, Lena Luthor could fly on her own. And fuck Kara Danvers too. But of course, Kara Danvers never really existed. Just another lie. Another way to get something from Lena. She knew Kara was too good to be true, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. And the pain of knowing that Kara, just like so many other people in her life, betrayed her made the earth-shattering pain in her arm seem like nothing. She started to think about all of the events that lead her to be on this gurney being removed from the DEO’s med bay where she’d been held captive by her (former) best friends, but the pain meds Dr. Ngo administered were too much and she was no match so she let herself go under to the sound of familiar voices soothing her, giving orders to others, and the rhythmic chop of helicopter blades.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. We lost power for a week thanks to Isias and my macbook died. Ugh.

In her defense, Kara really did think she was helping Lena. Even though she’d had disastrous results doing exactly this before, she thought that this time the DEO and Alex would believe her, would believe that Lena Luthor was going to do the right thing. But it all went wrong, terribly wrong and Lena had been shot by someone on Alex’s team and then they were holding Lena in a med bay, but she just seemed to get worse and worse. Everything Kara did, everything she said, just seemed to make everyone around her harden their resolve to keep Lena locked up in the DEO’s med bay. 

When the “all-star team” (Winn’s name for them) showed up to break Lena out, Kara had almost been relieved even though it meant she wouldn’t be able to explain herself. At least Lena would be release from the DEO. The rogue agent who’d shot her had conveniently disappeared and so had his weapon. And Alex, feeling betrayed, was getting defensive, which was never a good thing. 

But it was the words of one of the all-star team arguing with Alex for Lena’s release that had stuck with Kara: “Dr. Danvers, a member of your team shot Dr. Luthor with an experimental weapon while she was trying to stop her brother and save the world. I don’t know why I need to explain this to you, but that makes you and the DEO and even Supergirl here, the bad guys. And it is unethical for you or anyone in this organization to be treating Dr. Luthor.” And it hadn’t even been Amal Clooney. It was Alex’s med school mentor and hero, Dr. Ngo. Amal had let the court orders speak for her. 

As the helicopter disappeared in the distance, Kara had to physically restrain herself from following. She just wanted to protect Lena, but knew her presence would be considered a threat now. Dr. Ngo was right. They were the bad guys. But she’d been feeling that way for a while now. Locking up aliens and stealing their technology seemed to be most of her job. And the reasons for locking them up, grew flimsier and flimsier. 

“They’re probably with the Antis,” Alex said, but she didn’t sound like her heart was in it. She seemed more and more to be floundering in her role as Director. She complained in private to Kara that her promotion meant that she had even less say in their operations. It didn’t help that they worked for a government agency that now answered to Trump and his people. The Antis were Alex’s obsession. They’d only seen the word twice in decrypted emails between Lena and an unconfirmed co-conspirator (even though the emails seemed to be more personal in nature), but Alex was convinced or at least suspicious enough to cling to it as proof. And the timing was too coincidental. Or it had seemed that way. But they still hadn’t come up with anything on the mysterious Antis.

“I’ll have Winn do another search,” Alex said then sighed heavily. “I can’t believe Dr. Ngo works for Lena,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t believe Malala and Amal Clooney and even Cat Grant were here for Lena Luthor of all people.”

“Well, they were kind of right. Lena had a right to leave.” Alex glared at her, but she kept going. She’d tried to stop this, but Alex hadn’t listened then. She was going to at least make her listen now. “And they’re right. We’re the bad guys. Lena saved the world. Again. And we shot her for it.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t believe she and Lex weren’t working togeth-“ but Kara cut her off.

“But you have no evidence that Lena was working with him. Again. And she saved the world after we shot her.” Kara closed her eyes. “I’m so tired of this argument. You only believe the evidence when it backs up your belief that Lena is evil.”

“I don’t think Lena is evil!” Alex yelled then caught herself and closed her eyes, visibly trying to calm herself. “She’s my friend too.” she said, her voice small.

“Then why?” Kara nearly begged.

“It’s my job.” Alex said, her shoulders slumping and Kara had no idea what that meant and she was tired of this argument. She was tired of fighting with Alex about Lena, the DEO, and everything. 

“Well, your job sucks,” Kara said and let the sky pull her up and away. 

Now she was standing outside Lena’s office on the familiar balcony of reinforced concrete, glass, and steel. She knew Lena was inside. There was a press release stating that Dr. Luthor had returned to her offices in National City. And Kara could hear Lena’s heartbeat, familiar even though there was a strange buzz and rhythm to it, which she assumed was the effects of the surgery and treatments for whatever damage the “experimental weapon” had done. Kara just needed to know Lena was safe, that she was healing. That’s what she told herself even though she knew this was a bad idea. But Kara needed to see her for reasons she couldn’t really articulate even to herself. She didn’t realize how lonely she’d been until Lena was out of her life. She’d felt so alone since arriving on earth and learning to hide everything about herself from everyone, that she hadn’t really noticed that the terrible emptiness hadn’t been so terrible since Lena had entered her life. Until Lena was gone. 

Kara listened to Lena’s familiar heartbeat and realized that she could hear two other heartbeats and was nearly surprised by a fourth as a woman she vaguely recognized phased through the wall onto the balcony with her. 

“Supergirl, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the grounds,” the strange woman, the alien said. She was wearing an L-Corp security logo, but her uniform was too sleek, too stylish to be regular security. Lena must have hired a new detail. Kara found that comforting; Lena needed better security. But Kara wanted to be part of that security or at least on the inside of it. She missed Lena terribly. 

“I just wanted to talk to her. To make sure she’s okay and to say I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sure the many texts and emails and voicemails you and Kara Danvers have sent have delivered the message,” the woman said, with no smile.

“Oh,” Kara says deflating. Had security read all of them? Did that mean Lena hadn’t read them? 

Another woman walked onto the balcony through the glass doors in a neat, professional looking suit, her blond hair pulled back. It took Kara a moment to recognize her as Sara Lance’s partner, Ava something. What was she doing here?

“Everything alright, Wagatwe?” Ava asked, her stare fixed on Kara.

The alien, Wagatwe, relaxed slightly. 

“Hi Ava,” Kara said, but felt ridiculous when Ava tilted her head as if she was studying her, as if she wasn’t sure Kara was actually the person she remembered. 

“Hello, Supergirl,” she said with perfectly professional detachment. “I’m the acting head of Dr. Luthor’s new security detail. This is Wagatwe, one of Dr. Luthor’s most trusted agents.” Wagatwe smiled a little at that and bowed as if in acknowledgement. An alien as Lena’s most trusted security agent. Well that poked another hole in the DEO’s running assessment of Lena as an anti-alien terrorist in line with Cadmus. And this Wagatwe didn’t seem to be here against her will. 

“What can we do for you?”

“I just wanted to talk to Lena…Dr. Luthor. For a second.” She sounded too much like Kara Danvers and began to correct herself, but it was obvious these two women knew her identity. It made sense that Ava did, but Wagatwe. Did Lena tell them all? 

“She’s asked that you respect her boundaries and stay away until she makes contact with you,” Ava said in a tone of voice that sounded suspiciously like a professional therapist or conflict management expert.

“Oh, right.” Kara said, but it was not right. “Did she? Is her arm okay?” 

Ava’s face didn’t betray anything, a perfect professional security mask. That was when it struck Kara that Ava, a member of Sarah’s Legendary team, wouldn’t be there unless there was a situation. “Wait. Why are you here? Is Lena part of something —“ Again, that perfect mask. Kara was almost jealous. She had always been too easy to read. 

“Kara, you need to leave. L-Corp attorneys are applying for a restraining order against you and the DEO as we speak. Please don’t make this harder on Dr. Luthor than it already is.” Ava didn’t break eye contact, but moved slowly to pull her jacket slightly aside to reveal a strange weapon that was glowing a familiar sickening green. 

“I don’t— you don’t need to do that,” Kara said and took a step back. How had things gotten so bad that Lena’s security were threatening her? 

“Good,” Ava said and let her jacket fall back to hide the strange weapon again, but Kara could still feel it. 

“I would never hurt Lena — “ Kara began, stumbling over the words a bit in her shock. 

“But you did,” Wagatwe said and Kara turned to look at her, but found she could only blink in astonishment. 

“It’s alright, Wagatwe. Ava,” Lena said and Kara was shocked again to realize she didn’t even hear the door open. “What can I do for you, Supergirl?” The flat tone of her voice, the cool corporate mask told Kara everything she needed to know about the state of their friendship. Kara was no longer someone Lena considered a friend or even an acquaintance. 

“I…” she began, then stopped when she noticed the strange looking brace or device covering Lena’s arm, holding it bent protectively against her body. Looking deeper revealed strange materials and even what looked like a swarm of nanotech bodies moving over the structures of her arm that looked wrong. “Your arm. Will it — are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine, Supergirl.” But she was clearly not fine. She was even thinner and there were dark circles under her eyes. Kara could detect a slight tremor in her hands, her lip when she spoke, as if Lena was barely holding herself together. She always had to be so strong for everyone else, which made Kara want to scream, to pick her up and take her home where she could take care of her. But she didn’t have that right anymore. 

“Yes. I just wanted…Alex said that you should be careful about some group called the Antis,” Kara said, because she had to say something and she couldn’t say any of the other things she was thinking as she watched one of the most important people in her life suffer silently and shut Kara out. 

Lena actually smiled a little at that and Wagatwe laughed out loud. 

“Leave it to the DEO,” Lena said a little sadly. “Thank you for the info, Supergirl, but the DEO is wrong as usual. It’s “Aunties” like, your grandmother’s sister, and you’ve met some of them already.”

“I have?” 

“Yes,” Lena said. “And they’ll probably be in touch soon. If you need something from me, I’d appreciate it if you went through the Aunties. I trust their judgement.” Lena looked briefly at her arm then back to Kara, her eyes tearing up. “Since it’s clear I can’t trust my own judgement when it comes to you or Alex Danvers, they’ll act as a sort of go-between if you should need my services or L-Corp’s in the future.” Lena nodded once and before Kara could say anything more, could ask or explain, Lena turned and walked back into the office, the heavy glass door closing automatically behind her. Kara was left on the sunny balcony feeling colder than she’d felt since she arrived on earth.

“I know I messed up. I just want to make it right,” Kara said to no one, her voice nearly a whisper. Jess’s voice surprised her. She hadn’t noticed Jess had joined them on the balcony. 

“This isn’t some calculus quiz you failed, Supergirl. You didn’t ‘mess up,’ you broke her heart. And some of us will never forgive you for it.” Jess’s voice was tight and angry, but she held a slim card out to Kara who faltered before taking it. “The Aunties’ contact info. Dr. Luthor wanted you to have it.” Kara started to speak, but Jess cut her off, “Save it, Supergirl. Also, stop being a creep and get the fuck off Lena’s balcony.” And with that she turned and walked back into Lena’s office.

Ava and Wagatwe just stood silently with Kara as she tried not to cry, finally tucking the card away without looking at it. How could she have messed this up so badly? She wanted to ask Ava, but it was clear that Ava was acting as Lena’s security, not as a girlfriend of a friend Kara could confide in or ask for advice. So she wiped away the tears and nodded at both of them before taking off, Jess’s words on repeat in her mind: “You broke her heart. You broke her heart.” With all of her powers, it had never occurred to Kara that she had the power to break Lena’s heart. What did that even mean? 

_You broke her heart._

At least up in the clouds, no one would see her crying.


	3. Lena

This meeting was going to kill her. Here Lies Lena Luthor. She died of boredom and systemic sexism. Maybe she should get her PR department in on the design of her memorial. Lena hoped her macabre amusement didn’t show on her face. So many old white men condescending to her about subjects in which she was a documented expert was just exhausting. She knew this was necessary to keep them complacent until she made her move to reset the company, but she was having a hard time not just using ‘the nuclear option’ as Sam jokingly referred to it so that she’d never have to endure another one of these meetings. They were already in hour three of this thorough waste of her time. 

“Miss Luthor do you find this funny? Because if you feel we’re wasting your time, we can certainly call for an audit of L-Corp.” That was Bob White. Such an apt name for such a thoroughly boring, useless parasite of a man. She internally rolled her eyes at his pathetic threat. She had enough dirt on this creep to leave a crater the size of Manhattan in his life and he knew it. But that was for another time. Was her amusement and boredom that obvious? Her hard-earned Luthor mask must be slipping. Her arm was literally on fire, which meant the painkillers that allowed her to function were starting to thin. She needed a break. But she always needed a break. 

“It’s Dr. Luthor, Bob. Perhaps you should get checked for memory problems since you can’t seem to remember that.” Lena said and turned away from him to address the group and ignore the disgusting way Bob’s face and neck reddened and seemed to swell in anger. “Our stock is up dramatically, our R&D division just launched a new medical device that will revolutionize medical care. It’s all in the reports. I think we’ve covered everything, haven’t we gentlemen?” The other men in the group nodded in various states of fear and indecision, looking to Bob for leadership, but also understanding their precarious position on the Board. Each of them had a ‘creep folder,’ as Jess called it, a mile thick. The existence of these folders, collected by her new security and her allies in the Aunties, had kept things civil, at least in appearance, for months, but the desperation of these men threatened to override common sense. She’d have to talk to the Aunties about moving up the timeline on their plans for L-Corp. 

Bob was still fuming so Lena expected him to make some idiotic statement because he always had to have the last word, but she didn’t hear any of it. Her vision whited out as the pain in her arm overrode every other sense, locking her muscles into rigidity and blissfully removing her from consciousness. It only lasted a moment, but it was the longest —- she checked an internal screen — 3 seconds of her life. The “infection” in her arm had again broken through the barriers both nano-mechanical and biological Dr. Ngo and her team had created. Before Lena had a moment to worry that the Board members had noticed her whiteout, Jess very obviously and noisily entered the room to inform Lena that she had an emergency call with one of the overseas divisions. 

Lena tried to compose herself by watching an internal screen detailing Dr. Ngo’s instructions to the containment prosthetic covering her arm and containing the invasive DEO nanotech within. It also, mercifully, could administer pain meds and nerve block as needed. Apparently, Dr. Ngo had been alerted to a spike in Lena’s BP and, well, her everything else and done what was needed. Lena knew what this meant and tried to overcome the nausea that was threatening to spray what little she’d had to eat today all over the still-staring Board members. Jess simply nodded with an icy smile to their questions about the “emergency” stating only, “Read your NDAs, gentleman. Your drivers are waiting at the private exit.” Ava’s appearance at Jess’s side with the absolutely titanic figure of Govind, one of her most trusted security techs, seemed to convince them that they should make a strategic retreat. 

Lena made a note to give Jess another enormous bonus, if not the entire company before whiting out again.

When she came to this time, she was on her back on the board room table. Ava and Jess were standing over her with a hologram of Dr. Ngo. Ava was speaking almost inaudibly, probably to her team, ordering a helicopter and the medevac team who’d been waiting for an event exactly like this. Why did it always have to be a fucking helicopter?

“Lena, what the fuck were you thinking?” Sam. That was Sam’s voice. Sam had fought to attend this meeting in Lena’s stead, but Lena thought she needed to be there. She couldn’t stand to let these sexist old men think she was weak. She couldn’t stand the thought of making Sam suffer through it instead of her. 

“Exactly. What the fuck Lena? You shouldn’t have let this go so far. How are you even conscious? Your fever is 103 and your BP and stats are off the fucking chart!”

“Good to see you too, Dr. Ngo,” she slurred. She knew that she was smiling too much. They must have had to give her an enormous dose of morphine or laudanum or some experimental new pain med. Though she could still feel the bone-melting pain in her arm, it seemed miles away from her. She was floating on a cloud. Like Supergirl. “I’m flyin’, like a Super.”

Sam rolled her eyes, but Lena could see that she’d been crying and looked terrified. 

“You know what this means, right?” Dr. Ngo asked, her voice and features softer now. Careful. Lena was so glad Dr. Ngo was her lead physician. It was so nice to be able to speak to someone so brilliant, to leave her body and her life in the hands of someone she trusted. 

And yes, she knew what it meant and she also knew that she was in no state to give consent. 

“It’s a good thing I already signed all the paperwork in case. Let’s do this.” She said and found that she was almost relieved. She’d known that there was a very low probability that she’d be able to keep the arm. They just didn’t know enough about the alien nanotech from the DEO’s weapon, especially its interactions with the L-Corp nanotech Lex had stolen and she’d re-hacked to save the world. There just hadn’t been enough time. “I’m sorry, Sam. Being CEO sucks,” Lena said, her words slurred into a near mush by the drugs and the pain. Sam laughed through tears and she heard Dr. Ngo and Ava giving orders as a gurney was brought in. 

Sam, she noticed was holding Lena’s good hand and Jess was standing next to her, leaning against Sam’s tall frame as if for support. 

“Remember to listen to Jess, Sam,” Lena said as they carefully loaded her onto the gurney. “She’s really in charge.”

“I know, Lee,” Sam said and choked back tears. “I wish I could come with you. You need someone there for you.” 

Lena could hear Dr. Ngo speaking to someone making sure that Dr. Somasundurum was on her way to the emergency surgical suit. Good. Priya was Lena’s pick for the biomedical engineering team specializing in nanotech. If anyone could make this work while Lena was under, it was Priya.

“Should I call Kara?” Sam asked quietly and Lena noticed that Jess looked away as if in pain or maybe anger. 

“No,” Lena said too hastily and probably too loudly. Damn morphine. “She doesn’t —,” but she didn’t know how to finish that sentence. She just knew that Kara Danvers wasn’t her Kara anymore. She never had been. And Lena was used to facing the worst of the world alone. “Kiss Ruby for me. And give ‘em hell Arias.”

Sam leaned down to kiss her forehead and Jess just sobbed before giving Lena an awkward hug and nearly running out of the conference room. 

“You ready?” Dr. Ngo asked softly and Lena sighed. No, she wasn’t ready but she had no choice. The arm had to go or the DEO’s nanotech would infect nearby tissues and that would be the end of Lena in the most painful way imaginable. She’d known for a while, but couldn’t help hoping. Of course there was the chance that even with the arm amputated, the nanotech would still manage to infect her. It only took one nano-scale machine. She’d done the probability on different outcomes and tried not to think of them. The pain meds helped with that. A lot. 

“Let’s do this, Viv.” 

“See you in the real world, Lena,” Dr. Ngo said with a soft smile as the gurney started moving through the private back corridors of L-Corp toward the elevator to the dreaded helipad. Lena was out before Dr. Ngo’s hologram had faded away. Her last thought thanks to the pain meds she assumed, was of Kara, sunny and smiling down at her like the sun.


	4. Chapter 4

The press release came through L-Corp’s social media accounts first. Kara had them on alert for reasons, but usually they were just boring infodumps about L-Corp stock prices, upcoming events, etc. But this release left the superhero breathless in her wobbly CatCo office chair. 

_Acting CEO Samantha Arias reports that Dr. Lena Luthor has been airlifted to an undisclosed location for emergency surgery due to complications from injuries sustained during her recent battle with Lex Luthor._

Kara found she couldn’t speak or move and just stared at the screen hoping it would refresh to give her more information about her best friend. Her former best friend. 

But the screen stayed the same. 

Kara had tortured herself for weeks now with flashbacks to moments with Lena. Her Lena. Not the cold CEO everyone else knew. The Lena whose smile for Kara and only Kara was the sun. She’d spent so much time under the solar lamps at the DEO, Alex was beginning to notice. She felt cold all the time now. Cold and empty. How could she have been so oblivious? Strike that. Everyone commented on how oblivious Kara was. She’d just assumed it was a joke. Obviously not. 

Now this horrible news and Kara’s first inclination was to help. It was who she was. But Lena had made it clear she didn’t want her help. She wanted nothing to do with Kara anymore.

Kara looked at the screen again, read ‘emergency surgery’ and thought of Lena alone and vulnerable among strange doctors. At least, she thought, they weren’t strangers. Because Lena and Dr. Ngo were obviously friendly. But what if it wasn’t Dr. Ngo? What if it was another Lex Luthor trap? 

Kara didn’t know what to do. She wanted to call Alex. Actually, she wanted to fly to Alex’s apartment with scotch and ice cream and talk the way they used to talk so she could figure out this situation and do the right thing. But Alex was farther away from her than ever since the shooting and the all-star team’s intervention. She knew Alex was taking heat from people higher up in the military for her failure to ‘contain’ Lena Luthor. She knew that Alex was still protecting Kara. But from what? She just wanted her sister back and it was beginning to feel like the DEO had stolen her from Kara. Like they had stolen everything from Kara. What had begun as a sort of partnership between the superhero and the DEO had begun to feel like a hostage situation. The hostages were Alex and Kara Danvers. But if Kara left the DEO she would be just another unregistered alien, a potential threat. 

Kara knew she had no one she could confide in to help her with this. Anyone she spoke to would be endangered by the info and Kara’s interest. She found herself hovering above Lena’s balcony as if she’d flown here on automatic pilot. But it wasn’t Lena’s familiar heartbeat inside. Kara looked deeper into the other wavelengths that allowed her to see through walls and saw a familiar figure at Lena’s desk drinking what looked like Lena’s scotch from Lena’s expensive crystal glasses. Sam Arias, the supposed ex-Kryptonian. Kara had allowed that to pass through the DEO databases so that Sam could be free in ways Kara wasn’t. 

Sam looked up as if she’s felt Kara’s presence and Kara knew she was right about the acting CEO. Once a Kryptonian…

Kara walked through the door without consequence into Lena’s office and that fact scared her more than anything. It meant that Lena really was gone from this place if her security was dormant.

“Supergirl,” Sam said, slurring the word slightly. Maybe it wasn’t just scotch in the glass after all.

“Sam. It’s good to see you again.”

“Really?” Sam said with a snort and took another sip of whatever was in the glass. “Lena’s not here.” 

“I know,” Kara said with a wince she knew she hadn’t hidden effectively. “I…is she okay?”

Sam released a half sob, half laugh and emptied the rest of her glass. “No. They’re amputating her arm as we speak. Want some Kryptonian ale? Lena stocks only the best.” 

“What?!” Kara felt like her entire body was on fire. Like someone had brought Kryptonite into the office without her noticing. “They can’t! Her arm? What?! No!” Sam, she noticed, had assumed a defensive stance and Kara tried to relax. She knew that her reflex when hearing that Lena was in danger was to attack. She needed Sam, she reminded herself. Sam was a friend. 

“They have to or she’s dead. That fucking DEO nanotech bullet,” Sam said and walked over to Lena’s bar to pour some liquid into identical heavy crystal glasses. The last thing Kara needed was a drink, but it was also what she wanted so she took the glass Sam extended toward her like a peace flag. She noticed for the first time, the thick lenses in Sam’s black-framed glasses and the way they obscured her eyes. Dampening glasses like Kara’s.

“Please Sam,” Kara said then took a large drink of the liquid that tasted like worlds on fire, like liquid kryptonite. “I just want to help. I can’t stand the thought that she’s in pain somewhere, that she’s vulnerable….”

“I know. I know. But…” Sam trailed off taking a large sip of her drink and staring out the windows at National City’s skyline. “I can’t tell you where she is. You need to talk to the Aunties.” 

“But they think it’s my fault,” Kara said and made sure to keep the glass at her side instead of taking another drink.

“Isn’t it though? Partly?” 

Kara felt a defensiveness rising in her and pushed it back down. Took another drink. Sam was right. No matter what anyone else said, it was partially her fault Lena was in a clinic somewhere having her arm amputated. She wanted to die with this knowledge. Wanted to explode the sun to fill the hole that was inside her. 

“Yes.” Kara downed the rest of her drink and hung her head low. But she could still see the sunset, Lena’s skyline. “That’s part of the reason I need to help, to make this right.”

“And the rest of the reason?” Sam asked softly. So softly Kara could feel herself tearing up although she had no idea why. 

“I don’t know,” Kara said and it was the most honest thing she’d said since she last spoke to Lena as her friend. Her best friend. A terrible ache began in her chest at the thought of her Lena and that she might never see her or speak to her again.

Sam refilled Kara’s glass and they stood there staring at the skyline, sipping their Kryptonian ale. It felt good to know that Sam was possibly her physical equal. She wondered what Sam knew about Krypton. She wondered if Ruby inherited her powers but was afraid to ask the woman next to her. What if Sam thought she was threatening to out her to the DEO? The thought made Kara sick. All of those alien containment cells and Ruby, just a girl.

“Yeah. You need to figure that out, Supergirl.”

“And are you sure they can be trusted? What if they’re just using Lena? And you.” Kara asked, taking another burning sip. Because that was her real fear. That Lena had trusted these people and they were going to betray her. Like Kara had. _Or maybe_ , a terrible part of her thought, _you're worried they won't betray her like you and her supposed friends did._

“Do you trust Lena?” Sam asked without looking at her and Kara winced. Because this was the real issue. Kara trusted Lena, but she hadn’t trusted her enough to fight for her. She’d allowed Alex and the DEO to erode that trust enough to give someone an opportunity to shoot Lena. Kara had been so sure she was doing the right thing. She was just playing it safe in case Lena herself was being manipulated by Lex. But of course, that had been a rationalization. Lex was brilliant and diabolical, but Lena had proven to be his better time and time again in every way. “Because Lena trusts the Aunties and so do I.”

“But what if they want me to do something I can’t or won’t do. I can’t go against the DEO for them.”

Sam sighed. “That’s not how they work. They’re not—- they're more like advisors or matchmakers." Sam rolled her eyes in frustration. "I can't explain. Just talk to them.”

“Jess gave me a card, but it’s blank. There’s nothing on it.”

“Did you try to read it as Kara Danvers or as a Kryptonian?” Sam asked and Kara thought about this strange question. After several days of ignoring it, she’d removed the card from her Supersuit hoping for insight, but the card was blank. Beautiful artisanal-looking paper, but blank. She’d been furious at the time, sure that it was some kind of cruel joke. Kara thought about Sam’s question again and realized she’d looked at the card before going into work at CatCo as Kara Danvers. With her dampening glasses on. Oh. 

“As Kara Danvers,” Kara said without the usual accompanying terror that someone knew her secret identity. Sam knew. It was okay that Sam knew. Sam was like her. Sam too had a terrible and dangerous secret. And a daughter. 

“Try again. Try a thousand times, a thousand ways because Lena needs you. Even if she won’t admit she needs you. She has literally the best doctors in the world, but she still needs you. And I can’t tell you where she is because I don’t know. She wanted it that way so Ruby and I wouldn’t be at risk. Damn her noble ass,” Sam said and Kara looked away as tears roll down Sam’s smiling face. Sam removed her glasses to wipe the tears away and Kara wondered how she dealt with her powers, her extraordinary senses, but didn’t want to ask. It wasn’t the right time.

“Okay.” Kara said and took a drink because what else could she do? “Okay. The Aunties.” She pulled the card out again and stared at it. She could make out faint symbols and letters that seemed to exist somewhere inside the paper and above it. She realized that Sam could probably read it, but didn’t worry. She needed to trust someone again. She’d never felt so alone. And Sam was Kryptonian in physiology at least. Sam knew the terror of darkness eating at you from within, the terror of knowing that if you lost control for a moment, you could destroy everything you loved. 

Kara could see now that there was a URL on the card and some instructions. It was such a relief she took another long drink of the ale.

“How is Ruby?” she asked and Sam stiffened beside her, taking several long breaths before responding, her tone overly casual.

“She’s good. She’s spending the night with a friend right now. I can’t bear to tell her about her Aunt Lena yet,” Sam said and downed the rest of her drink. 

“She’s a good kid,” Kara said without knowing why. It just felt like the truth. And something she could give to Sam. It was the right thing to do because Sam smiled her first genuine smile since Kara stopped in. 

“Yeah, she is.”

Kara looked down at the card again. “It’s a URL —“

“Don’t tell me. That’s between you and the Aunties. Good luck. Supergirl. Please make sure Lena’s safe. If you hurt her again, I’ll tell Jess and she’ll end you.” That, at least, made Kara laugh. 

“I promise. And not just because Jess is hecking terrifying when it comes to Lena.”

Sam snorted and walked back to the bar. “She totally is. No wonder Lena trusts her with her life,” Sam said and it shouldn’t hurt, but it did. Because Lena didn’t trust Kara anymore. And that was totally Kara’s fault. 

“Go to the URL, Supergirl. Go get our girl.” Sam said. “And don’t ever hurt her again.”

Sam held her eyes, refusing to back down and Kara just nodded and turned to the balcony. The sky was waiting.

#

The URL turned out to be a restaurant in Osaka. As soon as she logged in she was informed that her order would be ready in fifteen minutes under the username Supergirl along with GPS coordinates. 

Kara scrolled through the order. A huge assortment of gyoza, enough for a small party. Her stomach rumbled as she imagined all of those dumplings. One of the best things about humanity as far as Kara was concerned, was their cross-cultural commitment to dumplings. Potstickers were truly a universal. Someone who knew her food preferences had put together this order. It wasn’t potstickers in the Americanized way5, but Kara found herself looking forward to the difference. A small part of her was yelling at her in Alex’s voice that this was probably a trap, but she silenced it. If she wanted to find Lena, she had no choice. And at least there were gyoza. She looked at the pictures again and her stomach growled. If the Aunties were leading her to a trap, at least there would be good food. Hopefully. 

She thought about shucking the Supersuit and all of the trackers embedded in it, but realized that it wasn’t unusual for Supergirl to fly to other countries for food. It was a common occurrence although she’d made fewer trips lately. It seemed pointless to travel so far for food she would inevitably eat without Lena or Alex. Easier to just order in and avoid all the crowds if you were eating alone. 

She was just going to pick up some delicious food. In Japan. Nothing unusual. 

Kara scrolled through the reviews and started salivating. She was in the air and flying toward the coordinates in moments. It suddenly felt like she hadn’t eaten in weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

The restaurant turned out to be more of a stall, but the line was long and enthusiastic. Kara posed for multiple selfies with polite fans waiting in the long line who insisted she cut to the front. She tried to say no, but it was made clear that this was a battle she would not win, so she tried to make up for what she perceived as rudeness of cutting ahead by taking selfies with everyone who wanted one, which turned out to be everyone in line and some people from across the street, and down the block. It was nice to use her rusty Japanese again. It was nice to be reminded that she loved learning languages other than English, that there were other nations, other cultures that seemed to accept and appreciate her. 

When she’d finally taken the last selfie, Kara arrived at the counter to three enormous bags of what smelled like heaven. She tried to pay but the woman working the counter assured her that her order had already been paid for. Kara had a policy about not accepting free food from vendors, but no amount of arguing seemed to sway the woman, who finally said that if she wished she could speak to the owner and waved toward a back room. 

Was this the trap? Kara scanned the back room and saw nothing but a small older woman with slight osteoporosis in her spine playing some kind of game on her phone. She was obviously taking a break from food prep because Kara could see another room, the kitchen, where four other women were arguing and laughing as they ferociously chopped, fried, and stirred. 

If it was a trap, Kara would at least get to eat a few gyoza. She thought suddenly of Lena smiling as she stole a potsticker from Kara’s plate and finally laughing as she gave it back after several minutes of Kara pouting. With a wince at the memory, Kara stepped into the back room and bowed to the older woman playing her game, hoping not to startle her. 

Kara thanked her and the woman finally looked up from her game. “Have you tried one yet? Don’t thank me until you have.”

Kara smiled and sat down at the table across from her as the woman placed her phone aside. Kara carefully removed one of the containers opening it to let the steam escape. The smell was incredible and it reminded her of something, a powerful memory that froze Kara, her hand with the chopsticks hovering over the gyoza.

“Lena. I had these with Lena in National City. She said she ordered them. How? I thought she meant takeout.” 

The woman smiled. “Dr. Luthor ordered our gyoza regularly and had them shipped to National City.”

“But she doesn’t even like them that much. No offense.”

“None taken,” the woman said but didn’t offer an opinion on why Lena would have these dumplings shipped across an ocean at great expense despite not really liking them enough to do such a thing. Which left Kara with the uncomfortable probability that Lena had done such a thing simply because Kara loved them. And that thought just made her ache in a way Supergirl wasn’t supposed to. Supergirl didn’t ache. Supergirl didn’t feel pain. 

“Oh.” And Kara was crying again. She should be used to this by now, but it was still a surprise the way the grief would return without warning, a tsunami. Grieving wasn’t new to her, but grieving for a friend who wasn’t really dead or even gone? That was new. A friend whose presence, whose absence, seemed to grow in scale over time instead of receding. She should be getting over Lena Luthor, but she wasn’t. And she found she didn’t want to. “Is Lena okay?” Kara asked and popped the first gyoza into her mouth hoping it would silence all of the things she wanted to say, wanted to ask. The first taste released a slew of unwanted memories, her very own madeleine. Smell/taste really was such a powerful tie to memory. And all of them Lena. Lena, Lena, Lena. 

“That is not a simple question with a simple answer,” the woman said with the same unnervingly calm smile. 

Kara thought about this response, thought about all of the platitudes and angry accusations everyone around her seemed to dole out generously whenever Lena’s name came up in conversation. Kara was either supposed to shut up about Lena because she was some kind of villain or she was supposed to get over her because it was easier for everyone else. Or both. Here at a gyoza stand across an ocean with a woman she had never met, was at least an honest response. Because everything with Lena had always been so complex, which was one of the reasons she’d been drawn to her and continued to orbit her. 

Kara nodded politely and ate another five gyoza, chewing thoughtfully. For food denigrated as “simple fare” it was wonderfully complex, especially with the fragrant dipping sauce. There was a certain combination of spices, she realized that was reminiscent of a common spice on Krypton. A spice that must have been in many dishes she’d eaten as a child. 

She stared down at the sauce and the few remaining gyoza. “These are incredible and… they remind me of food on my home world. I never realized that before,” she said and looked up to find the woman smiling at her. A real smile. 

“We share some common physiology. It stands to reason that we would share certain chemical,” she shook her head as if trying to find the best way to articulate and translate her thoughts, a feeling familiar to the Kryptonian. “It stands to reason that our environments, our food, would contain similar or familiar features.”

Kara nodded. “On Krypton, we had a variation on dumplings, but the casing was a plant leaf, not grain-based. And no meat. Well, not meat from an animal. Animals were too precious. Most of them extinct.” She popped another gyoza in her mouth, this one with a green dough, which she quickly realized was wasabi. If she were human she’d be feeling the heat, instead she just felt the warmth of the spice and the subtle vibrations of its chemical makeup. Beautiful. The green, she realized, reminded her of Lena’s eyes. 

“Fascinating,” the woman said, staring at Kara intently and Kara understood that she was being honest and sincere. So many of her interactions with others in the United States seemed to rely on a sort of apathetic irony. She’d always found it difficult to determine when someone was subtly or not so subtly mocking her. But this woman, Kara realized, was sincerely interested in what she had to say about her home planet and her observations of dumplings as a universal constant. 

“Were you, I mean, have you always been a master of gyoza?” Kara asked and the woman laughed, her posture and even her heart rate changing completely to something more relaxed. 

“No. No. I am still a student of the gyoza despite many years of study,” she said and laughed and Kara found herself smiling along with her. “I was a chemical engineer by training,” she said and her smile dimmed a bit. “But here in Japan, a woman, and especially a woman of Korean descent, could not find meaningful or even steady employment in this discipline. So I turned to another kind of chemistry.”

“Cooking,” Kara said with a smile and the woman seemed delighted that Kara understood. Kara took a bite of another gyoza and closed her eyes to savor the rich taste. “The most profound and meaningful application of chemistry. You are definitely a master.”

“My name is Yiyun” the woman said. Kara rose from her chair and bowed deeply from the waist. Yiyun was a master of her art and she wanted to honor her. 

“My name is Kara Zor-El and I am honored to meet you,” Kara said and it felt like flying to finally use her real name without fear. Because it felt necessary to honor this woman with her own name. 

Yiyun laughed and rose to return Kara’s bow. “I can see why Lena likes you, Kara Zor-El.” Which was an odd thing to say when Lena wasn’t just not speaking to Kara, but had a restraining order against her, her sister, and the DEO, an organization, which, technically, did not exist, even according to the law. But she found herself blushing anyway at the idea that Lena liked her enough to tell others. That Lena had liked her that much once upon a time. 

The woman’s smile faded. “Lena, as you know, is still suffering from the effects of your government’s weapon. She is in critical condition, which has not stopped her from working with her team to reach a better outcome for herself and for others who may be affected by this unknown nanotech.”

“Lex’s nanotech?” Kara asked, growing more and more disturbed by the moment.

“No. An alien nanotechnology that has been modified by your government.” The woman stated calmly taking a sip of tea that still steamed near her hand.

“How do you know?” 

“We have some of the best scientists working on it, including Dr. Luthor herself. Scientists both human and non-human who are familiar with Lex’s strain. The strain he stole from L-Corp and modified.” 

Well that was interesting. Did these Aunties have aliens working for them or with them? It was a subtle distinction, but Kara didn’t feel she could ask the question since more and more she felt as if she was working for the DEO, not with them. And there was also the possibility that this was all a clever lie to cover up something else. Except that Sam’s reaction and real worry hadn’t been a lie. And despite Lena’s calm front, her heartbeat had been erratic and strange when Kara had last seen her on the L-Corp balcony. And she’d noticed a strange hum coming from the device covering her damaged arm. She’d thought at the time that there was some circuitry in the odd cast, but from what this woman was telling her, Kara assumed that the hum may have come from the nanotech infection itself. And the flickering too? Kara thought of what she’d seen that day, trying to strip the overwhelming emotions from images she retained. The flickering. It seemed familiar. 

“iXtlan nanoswarms!” Kara said suddenly, standing up abruptly and accidentally destroying the chair she’d been sitting in in the process. “Oh sorry.”

But the woman just waved her off gazing at her intently so Kara tried to explain her outburst, “They’re a species whose cells are actually individual nanobots or what are called nanobots here on earth. They’re actually a swarm of interacting nanocells, but they look like any other organism that can shapeshift and, oh no,” Kara realized she’d taken an iXtlan into custody after a truly bizarre confrontation several months before, but when she’d asked about the iXtlan, no one could tell her where they were or what had happened to them. 

“Supergirl?” Kara didn’t know how much to say, how much she could say. She scanned the area for any transmissions in different frequencies, but found nothing but the woman’s turned off cell phone and her own, which was transmitting the usual patterns. She quickly turned her phone off. Everything she did for the DEO was supposed to be top secret, but the fact that they may have essentially dismembered an innocent iXtlan and used parts of them to infect Lena…

“I think I know what the nanobots in Lena’s arm are and how they’re communicating. They’re iXtlan in origin, which means there are a few ways to communicate with them because they’ve been separated from their main swarm, they’ll be very aggressive in— ” Kara said. “It’s not too late is it?” 

The woman stared at her intently for a few moments and Kara felt as if the woman had powers beyond her own, as if she was seeing not just into Kara physically, but into her mind and even her past. She felt completely seen for the first time in so long. 

“You need to speak to the Aunties,” the woman said with a curt nod and waited for Kara’s consent. 

“Okay, yes how do we do that? Do I need to go somewhere?” Kara eyed her cooling gyoza with deep regret. But she knew how to get more now. 

“No. But we are not sure how our VR tech will function for someone with Kryptonian physiology.” 

“Oh, so like a hologram?” Kara asked and the woman nodded. 

“Yes, your visual acuity may mean that the hologram will appear,” she seemed to struggle for words for the first time.

“Glitchy? That’s okay. you should see the hologram of my mother it’s, nevermind. Can we do it now? Can I meet the Aunties now?” 

The woman pulled something that looked like lip balm from her pocket and nodded. She spread a dab on each temple and handed it to Kara who couldn’t help scanning it only to find a familiar if slightly different hum. Nanobots. She hesitated for a moment then thought of Lena fighting an alien nanoswarm because of Kara’s actions twice over. She’d helped the DEO imprison the iXtlanian even though Kara’s people had always had friendly relations with the species and she’d betrayed Lena’s confidence to the DEO. She closed her eyes and dabbed the oily substance on her temples the way Yiyun had. The humming got louder then the world seemed to shift slightly, to glitch, and they were standing somewhere else with a large group of older women. Kara tried not to react, but found herself becoming rigid with something like fear. She didn’t like surprises and maybe Alex had been right about this group. They all seemed to start speaking at once in various languages that Kara found she could understand with just a moment of lag. Yiyun smiled and her rolled her eyes, raising her hands in the universal call for quiet. 

“Supergirl may have some insight into Dr. Luthor’s condition. I thought it prudent that she meet with you all as soon as possible.” They were all staring at Kara now, some looked thoughtful, others smiled, and a few with open hostility. Which Kara got. She deserved it. 

“And why should we trust any information she might give us now? She’s had weeks to do something. Anything. This is probably another attempt by the DEO to sabotage Dr. Luthor.”

“No! I would never hurt Lena,” Kara argued then realized too late that this was the wrong strategy as even the few who had smiled at her, now crossed their arms or let her know in other ways with posture or downright frowns, that they knew exactly what had lead to Lena’s current condition and the role Kara played in it. So they probably knew her identity too. She backtracked and started over. “I mean, I know that Lena got hurt because of things I did and I take full responsibility for that, but I never want her to be hurt. I would do anything to help her.”

“Anything? I highly doubt that.” Because of the lag, it took Kara a moment to understand who had said it. A striking white woman with gray hair in a t-shirt and sweatpants. She was smiling slightly and looked vaguely familiar to Kara, but they all did. They all had the authoritative proud posture Kara associated with the women of Krypton. Women like her mother and Astra. Women who knew their own power and didn’t have to hide it away. 

“I…you’re right,” Kara made sure to straighten her spine, to stand tall. She needed to be honest with herself and these women. they had made it clear they wouldn’t take half-truths or vague pronouncements. “That’s not entirely truthful. I would do almost anything to help Lena, to repair the damage I caused. I think I know the source of the nanobots that infected her.”

“Because your agency shot her. Of course you know. You’ve known since the day she was shot and incarcerated by the DEO.” This was one of the women Kara had assigned “open hostility.” This woman was small with the deep dark skin tone Kara had come to associate with friends from Kenya and Nigeria. Her hair was also gray but done up in intricate knots and braids. 

“I didn’t. I know you have no reason to believe me, but the man who shot her disappeared and so did his weapon. I fought for Lena’s release, but was ignored.”

“You’re Supergirl. You obviously didn’t fight very hard.” Another woman moved to intervene on Kara’s behalf, but Kara stopped her.

“No. You’re right. I should have fought harder for her. I will always regret that I didn’t. But I just put it together talking to Yiyun,” Kara took a moment to motion toward Yiyun and back to the group. “That I may know the source of the alien nanotech infecting Lena.”

“Why don’t you tell us what you came here to tell us and we will decide based on that information.” Everyone had stilled when this new woman spoke and Kara understood then that this woman was highly respected and her decisions carried weight. Several women nodded including the openly hostile women and they all turned to stare at Kara. 

“I believe it may be an iXtlan nanoswarm or, well, part of one.” Kara took a deep breath deciding whether to give up the DEO’s secrets to these women. They were all waiting for her to speak. They’d done nothing to threaten or entrap her. They were just waiting to see what she had to say about Lena. She nodded once her decision made. “A few months ago, I was told to bring in an iXtlanian after a series of incidents that didn’t make much sense. Krypton always had really friendly relations with iXtlan. But anyway, I did it. And then they disappeared. When I asked, no one could tell me where they were. When I was talking to Yiyun about Lena, I was thinking about the time I saw her on her balcony and the way her arm was sort of humming,” she looked up and noticed that at least two of the women had noted the fact that she’d given away a secret of her superpowers. “It was a familiar hum. iXtlan nanoswarms hum like that. But you wouldn’t hear it unless,” she pointed at her own super-powered ears.

“And you didn’t realize until now? I find that hard to believe.” 

“I,” she began and swallowed. Why was it so hard to admit? “I was really upset about Lena. That she wouldn’t really talk to me. That she had her security ready to attack me. I mean, I knew she was angry, but I thought we could…anyway. I was kind of really distracted. By that.” And she was crying again. What was wrong with her? 

“What do you think, Priya?” someone asked and another, younger woman, appeared in their group. Kara realized that she must have been there, invisible to her, the entire time.

“I think this is so problematic on so many levels,” Priya said with a sigh and introduced herself as one of Lena’s doctors, Dr. Somasundurum. “Lena’s in no state to give consent to Supergirl’s help, but we’re desperate and I…” she seemed to check something over her own shoulder as if she was talking to someone they couldn’t see. “Dr. Ngo says to bring her in, but to tell her Ava Sharpe’s here with the full security team and if they see any sign of the DEO or another betrayal —” Kara nodded.

“I understand. I won’t even wear the suit. Trackers,” she said and several of the other women nodded. 

“Fuck, this is a mess,” Priya said, running a hand through her hair. She looked around the room, resigned and exhausted. “Give her the coordinates and do it fast or it may be too late anyway.” And she was gone. The other women were staring at her, none of them were smiling.

“You can’t leave the suit with Yiyun,” openly hostile, number one said and Kara nodded. 

“I know. Too dangerous for her. I’ll leave it at the Fortress of Solitude,” when they all looked at her like she needed to explain she sighed. “It’s in Antarctica. Impenetrable Kryptonian tech. I’ll tell you all about it later. I just, Lena needs,” they all started nodded at once and a series of GPS coordinates came up in front of her. She was ready to fly naked to the coordinates if it meant saving Lena. “Thank you, thank you I’ll,”

“We’ll be with you as long as,” she said and pointed at her temple where Kara could still feel the lip balm. “Don’t make us regret this, Kara Zor-El.” Kara looked to see who had said it, but it could have been anyone or everyone there. She nodded solemnly and bowed. 

“I swear on my house, the house of El,” she said and pointed to her crest. “I will do anything and everything I can to save Lena Luthor.”

As the room dissolved around her and the gyoza stand re-appeared, Kara began to say her good-byes to Yiyun, who just waved her off and said, “Go fast, Supergirl. And come back soon for gyoza.”

Kara smiled, bowed with a quick thank you and took off as fast as she could without causing damage to the building or its inhabitants. She was going so fast on her way to the Fortress that it took her several seconds to realize her comms were going off. 

“Supergirl? Your signal disappeared in Osaka and now we have you headed like a bullet for the Fortress. Everything okay?” Alex. 

“Yes,” Kara gritted her teeth as she slowed down enough to be heard over the roar of air. “I just need to take a some personal time.”

There was a long pause and Kara wondered who she’d be talking to next. Alex, her sister, or the Director. “Why don’t you come in and we’ll discuss it.”

The Director then. Kara’s voice when she responded was full of steel. “I didn’t realize I needed to the permission of the DEO for personal time off.”

“I — you don’t,” Alex stumbled. Kara waited, teeth gritted. Every second of delay could mean Lena’s life. It was agonizing, but she didn’t want the DEO and Alex going into full reclamation and attack mode. She needed some time. “Is this about —“ Alex began, but Kara cut her off.

“Do you really want to finish that question?” 

Another long pause. “No. You’re right. It’s your time. You’ve earned it. Let me know if you need anything. Supergirl.” Alex’s voice had changed by the end and Kara felt sad about everything they’d lost. This was the sister she remembered, the sister she needed. And she also knew that Alex was probably going to pay for Kara’s insubordination, but Lena could be dying. And Alex could take care of herself long enough for Kara to return. 

“Love you, Alex. And you may want to check on that iXtlanian I brought in a few months ago,” Kara said casually and started flying again. Alex’s questions and finally ‘love you back’ were nearly lost in the jet engine roar of Superspeed. 

By the time Kara reached the GPS coordinates, she was in the middle of the south Pacific in whatever clothes she’d picked up at the Fortress. She hadn’t really checked in her haste to get to Lena, but at least they hadn’t shredded at high velocity. At the coordinates she found what at first glance looked like an oil drilling platform. It didn’t take x-ray vision to see that it was something very different. An entire hospital and lab and what looked like a tiered greenhouse as well as multiple living units made the platform look almost comfortable, like a city. Kara landed on a deck at the top that must also be used as a helipad where several women in lab coats waited apparently for her. Ava Sharpe was with them along with an enormous man in L-Corp security gear who must be the infamous Govind, Jess’s sometime boyfriend. Kara nodded and tried not to feel self-conscious in what was basically her Supersweats as Alex and Winn called them. 

One of the women in lab coats, a familiar tall woman with rich brown skin and long hair extended a hand. “Supergirl, I’m Priya. Dr. Somasundurum? We met with the Aunties.” 

Kara took her hand gently. “Kara. Zor-El. What do you need from me?” 

Priya squeezed her hand and withdrew, smiling slightly through her obvious exhaustion. “Follow me. Lena’s waiting so we don’t waste time going over this again and again.” Priya turned to the doors which slid open automatically and Kara paused. Lena was waiting. She was suddenly ridiculously nervous. For some reason, she hadn’t expected to actually see Lena. Kara looked away to find Ava watching her, a barely perceptible smile on her face. Priya was still talking about nanotech swarms and alien signaling languages as she walked away expecting Kara to follow so Kara swallowed down her own terror and walked through the doors, Ava and Govind falling into step seamlessly behind her. There was a moment when she worried that she’d walked into the trap she’d been worried about. Ava still had the kryptonite weapon at her hip and she could hear Wagatwe’s strange heartbeat somewhere nearby. And Lena’s. Her relief at being able to hear Lena’s heartbeat after so long was so profound, she stopped walking and stood still in the middle of the hallway. It was faint, and more erratic, thinner, than it should be, but it was still beating. Kara was so relieved she almost cried when Priya turned around with a look of confusion. 

“I did a little research on iXtlan swarms at the Fortress so I know a little more than I did when we spoke earlier,” Kara said and followed Priya toward Lena’s beating heart.


	6. Chapter 6

At least this time though she was in terrible pain, Lena was in a space with people she trusted and knew well. Both the physical space of the real world and the hyperspace of the virtual world she kept just above and beside it, like an overlay, another layer of reality. She’d discovered that being in the hyperspace they’d created was almost as effective as morphine and its derivatives without the debilitating side effects. It gave her brain a place to escape to, away from the mind-numbing pain. 

And more importantly, Lena was able to work with her physicians on her own treatment. She trusted these women with her life, but she needed to feel like she had some part in this, some measure of control over events that had gotten completely beyond her control. All of her work running probabilities on their plans to hack Lex’s stolen nanotech and this had never even entered the realm of possibility. Lena herself infected with unknown, probably alien nanites wasn’t even close to the worst case scenario. And now she was going to have to work with Kara who supposedly had some important information about the alien nanites that may or may not be infecting her arm. If she could be trusted, and Lena had irrefutable proof she couldn’t be trusted. But they had no options. And the Aunties seemed to think the information Kara possessed was at least useful. The Aunties and Dr. Priya Somasundurum so Lena took a few deep breaths and decided to trust everyone but Kara. And the only reason she was willing to do that was that the nanites weren’t just threatening her arm and her life but potentially others as well. It had taken them too long to understand that Lena’s infection wasn’t bacterial or viral, too long to quarantine her effectively. They were monitoring everyone who had been in contact with her, and so far no one showed signs of infection or exposure, but Lena still felt responsible. Because Dr. Ngo was one of those who could have been exposed. Dr. Ngo had risked her life for Lena and there was no way Lena would let her die for her. The world needed Dr. Ngo. The world could do without Lena Luthor.

Lena stared out the window at the Pacific that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction including up. It was a rare clear day and the seam between ocean and sky was nearly invisible. There were trees and a riot of plants and ferns framing her view and Lena made a note to ask who had designed this particular feature because it was the only thing making her feel like she might survive this and more importantly, like she might want to. If she’d had to spend another day in a sterile clinical space, she felt like she’d lose all hope. 

There was nothing personal about the isolation ward, but her own hyperspace was full of personal touches. Photos and video of her with Ruby and Sam, personal notes from friends and acquaintances, an entire playlist from Malela, a list of pushy notes from Cat Grant telling her all the things she was missing in National City while she was “lazing around like a useless millenial.” Lena smiled. It was good to have Cat back running Catco. And probably running National City, she had to admit. 

Lena sent off a note full of cheesy beach photos and a list of all the ridiculous drinks she wasn’t drinking, all the bikini-clad women and nearly-naked men she wasn’t sleeping with, to Cat with a note: “Wish you were here!” 

A quick text from Priya alerted her that she and Kara were on their way and the smile fell from her face. Lena quickly checked the feed from the helipad and the hallway to her ward to find them chatting as they walked. She could tell Priya was standing a little taller despite her exhaustion in the presence of the superhero even without the cape and suit. Even Dr. Somasundurum was affected by the Kryptonian. And Kara’s presence affected Lena more than she expected, her heart skipping beats only to race as Kara got closer. It didn’t help that Kara was wearing sweats and no glasses looking like a hybrid of Kara Danvers and Supergirl, soft but unthinkably strong. Lena took deep breaths and tried the biofeedback methods she’d learned during meditation to keep the monitors from giving her away to Dr. Ngo as if that were possible. Another small invasion of her privacy that she knew was necessary and there was no one she trusted more with the information, but it still infuriated Lena. So she took more deep breaths finally giving up to immerse herself in the hyperspace until Kara and Priya arrived outside her isolation chamber. 

Lena took another deep breath and dialed down the overlays until she was almost fully back in the real world with Kara, Priya, and unfortunately all the pain. Setting her jaw against it, she finally looked up and through the bulletproof, nanite-proof (they hoped) transparent barrier. Kara blushed and Lena felt her jaw clenching with the strain of holding too many things at bay. She wasn’t going to last long. 

“Hi Lena, I’m sorry —“ 

“Let’s get to the point please. I don’t have much time,” Lena interrupted. “Literally.” She couldn’t do this emotional drama on top of everything. A note from one of Dr. Ngo’s team popped up alerting her to the fact that she needed to administer pain medication and if she didn’t, the system would do it for her. Dr. Ngo knew her too well. 

Kara looked hurt and surprised for just a moment before squaring her shoulders into her trademark Supergirl stance. “I…yes. Of course. I checked the database at the Fortress —“

Lena interrupted again. “The database you refused to allow me to access for research because I’m a Luthor.”

“I…Lena, it’s not that simple.” Kara said and Lena noticed the confusion on Priya’s face, the way she was looking back and forth between Lena and the superhero as if unsure what to do. 

“It’s never that simple. Whatever. Nevermind. Just…what did you find?”

“The nanites in your arm and,” Kara squinted and Lena swore she could feel that x-ray vision permeate her entire body with warmth. “It’s systemic now?” 

Lena just nodded and noticed on another feed that Dr. Ngo was almost to the room. She looked exhausted and a bit rumpled although Lena knew from experience that she would be as sharp as ever.

“There’s a species that is, well, each organism is really a nanite swarm even though it looks like an actual whole body or person. Every cell is a nanite, a sentient organism itself, which could also be said to be true of humans and Kryptonian, but we can’t actually communicate with our cells. Consciously. And they can. Or, that’s as close to an explanation as I can get using your scientific terms and metaphors. Which I realize I wouldn’t have to be doing if you’d had access to the database so, I’m sorry.”

“If you say you’re sorry one more time, we’re done here,” Lena said. 

Kara’s shoulders dropped and Lena felt an infuriating, confusing mix of satisfaction and a need to comfort her former best friend. She steeled herself just as Dr. Ngo entered the room standing well away from Kara with her arms crossed. She gave Lena a pointed look just as the morphine entered her bloodstream and Lena felt everything go soft and a bit fuzzy. Her muscles began to unclench and she noticed that her hands had been fisted against her sides and consciously relaxed them. Shit, she thought. She needed that anger to deal with Kara.

“Sorr-“ Kara began then stumbled and stopped. Kara was looking at Lena strangely and she realized that the superhero must have noticed the physiological changes caused by the painkillers. She knew Lena was softening up. Perfect. “Um, okay. So this nanoswarm infecting you is really more of a severed arm or organ and it’s trying to keep its identity until it can reunite or communicate with its…um, hive or swarm or however you want to think of it.” Another deep look at Lena and Kara’s frown deepened. “And are those Lex’s nanites too?”

Kara was looking at Lena, but Lena didn’t trust herself to speak so Priya finally answered. “Uh, yes. Our swarm now that Lena re-hacked it. It must have been on Lena’s clothes or possibly in the atmosphere the DEO projectile passed through to reach Lena. Either way, it seems to be aggressively attacking this alien nanites. And vice versa.”

“And Lena’s tissues are the collateral damage,” Dr. Ngo said softly. 

Kara swallowed again and winced. 

“So did your database have any info on how to communicate with this alien swarm? Tell it to stop?” Lena asked and Kara jumped as if startled. 

“Maybe. But it’s—“

“Not that simple?” Lena said sweetly and Kara closed her eyes and nodded. 

“Yeah. If there’s enough of the swarm left in one piece or bunch, it’ll detach and return to its swarm when it locates them. But from what I can tell from its or their actions, I don’t think there’s enough of its community left. I think that,” Kara nodded to Lena’s arm, still encased in the device, “is what’s left, but it doesn’t know that. They don’t know that.” 

“And if the DEO did this, abducted this alien and basically dismembered it to make it into weapons, we can assume there probably isn’t much left of it.” 

Kara nodded frowning as if she didn’t want to agree, but couldn’t refute it either and Lena felt herself again wanting to comfort her old friend. Her former friend.The morphine was softening everything including her feelings for Kara. 

“Do they use chemical signaling? Or visual? Some kind of light-based system?” Priya asking the questions Lena should be asking.

“A combination, but primarily, um, quantum signaling?” Kara said, but didn’t sound sure. Lena assumed it was another translation issue. More time wasted because Kara had never trusted her to learn Kryptonian science and languages. No matter. Thoughts like those were a waste of time and Lena didn’t have much.

“So? Light?” Lena asked and wished she was sharper for this conversation. “But not in discreet packages. I’m assuming they’re using superposition to expand their communication. Or maybe entanglement?”

“Yes! Entanglement,” Kara said and beamed at Lena. “They behave as a swarm like one of your theoretical quantum computers.”

“Or a Bose-Einstein condensate,” Lena murmured almost to herself. She felt ridiculously stoned and stupid.

Kara gave her another strange look, “Yes. Actually, that may be more accurate.”

Priya was furiously typing something into her laptop. 

Lena looked at the cage around her arm, then at the overlays, which showed the swarm as an orange blob with isolated, tiny spheres of green — Lex’s, now the Aunties’ — nanites. The alien swarm was walling them off while it consumed her own tissue. She wondered what Kara saw when she looked at Lena’s arm or what was left of it. Was their human imaging tech giving Lena an inaccurate metaphor for what was happening to her? Who had chosen the colors, for example and what did they mean? Lena shook her head slightly to stop this line of thought. It felt too much like the thoughts of a stoner. She thought about quantum computers, about organisms who acted like quantum computers. Probably another bad metaphor. You could describe human brains as quantum computers. And the universe. That didn’t help. 

“But our idea of programming is probably too linear, a series of commands, and I’m getting the feeling this should be more of a series of questions or requests. An invitation,” Lena said and Kara looked shocked, but it slowly morphed into an adoring smile. Lena felt herself softening again toward Kara, which wouldn’t do. “Or a threat. If it continues to consume the rest of me. Unless you have any idea how to communicate that information and convince it I’m not the enemy, it’s going to eat me. Literally.” Lena didn’t add how ironic it was that Kara could convince anything or anyone Lena wasn’t the enemy. She couldn’t even convince her sister. 

Kara looked again at Lena’s arm in that way that Lena was beginning to realize was the Kryptonian looking into her, rather than at her. 

“I think I have something. A possibility, at least,” Priya said and Lena felt her body react. “The interface you’re using internally, the one we thought would simply be like a screen you could control with your eyes.” Lena knew Priya was speaking almost automatically, as if she were speaking to herself, out loud. It was the way Lena’s brain worked as well. And she knew Priya was speaking in terms that the Dr. Ngo and the other physicians and aunties observing from hyperspace could understand.

“Hyperspace,” Lena mumbled and Priya smiled. 

“You realize that that is not at all how others experience the nanite screens/contact lenses,” Priya said and Lena nodded her assent. She knew that something different was happening with the way she experienced the VR tech they all used, but she’d been in too much pain, had too many other pressing emergencies to really investigate it. She knew she should still have to use her visual field or physical cues like pointing with her actual hands, to change things in hyperspace, to interact with the system at all, but she’d been simply thinking her commands for what felt like weeks. The morphine had helped to normalize it.

“Anyway,” Priya continued. “You’re interacting with the system using your thoughts instead of haptics so I’m thinking that you’ve already somehow interfaced directly with nanites that have infiltrated your bloodstream and somehow the blood-brain barrier.”

“So if I’m communicating directly with nanites already, why can’t I communicate with the nanites we hacked? or the aliens’?”

“Exactly. Maybe you already are, we just haven’t understood that you were or what you were communicating.”

“Unless they’re already communicating with me. I mean, I’m also a system that can be hacked,” Lena said but Priya didn’t look up.

“Like toxoplasmosis gondii?” Dr. Ngo asked and Lena nodded, wincing as that brought a new wave of pain. Kara was looking between three as if she was lost, which Lena found herself enjoying more than she should. Lena wanted desperately to return to hyperspace, at least 70% immersion. The pain was becoming unbearable. She watched the nanites in her arm, pulse like an orange jellyfish on one of the monitors built into the transparent barrier and suddenly it all made sense.

“Oh!” Lena said and felt acutely how much more difficult this would be to work out without the ability to write it down or up on a white board. “I’ve been retreating more and more to hyperspace because the pain decreases dramatically. Which doesn’t make sense unless —“

“The pain is an attempt to communicate. Or an artifact of the nanites facilitating this direct communication between your mind and the VR system.”

“Exactly. They’ve hijacked my nervous system and have been trying to send me a message, but I’ve been avoiding it by accessing hyperspace, which effectively suppresses other sensory information like pain. Or possibly they’ve hacked my hyperspace and I haven’t noticed the message.”

“They’re nanites! How is that even possible?” 

“You’re accessing hyperspace directly with your mind? That’s incredibly dangerous!” Kara and Priya spoke over each other then stopped. Lena decided to ignore Kara.

“It’s an advanced alien swarm, that’s how it’s possible. They probably know much more about all of this technology than we ever will. In fact, our tech probably seems hopelessly primitive, which could be part of the problem.” 

Lena ws trying to focus, but the morphine was making it difficult. So she pulled up her layered hyperspace visuals to 74% which was as high as she felt like she could risk. As Kara sputtered on about the danger of everything Lena was doing and Priya muttered to her laptop, Lena brought up the system controls that would let her access her hyperspace at the code level and took a deep dive. It was a lot. This system was partially coded and designed by AI, so Lena couldn’t really take it all in at once. And it had changed since she last looked at it right after she re-hacked their swarm back from Lex. But that change was to be expected. This “space” and the code that made it was supposed to evolve. So, it was more about looking for patterns, and things that didn’t fit the pattern. Like the weird bit of code that looked like a random string of integers, but of course, truly random strings of integers were incredibly rare. Lena asked the AI to search for any other strings of numbers and the code around it. Something was trying to access her system, or possibly the internet, L-Corp satellites, and everything. It took a moment for Lena to recognize inserted into one of these strings, one of Lex’s private jokes, which meant the non-alien nanites in Lena’s arm hadn’t been re-hacked with the rest somehow and they were doing what Lex’s swarm was supposed to do: destroying everything they could reach. So the alien swarm was trying to protect Lena from Lex’s nanites or itself? Or both?

“Priya, I think the non-alien nanites are still under Lex’s control,” Lena said from what felt like an incredible distance, so she reduced her hyperspace to 35%.

“Oh shit, that would explain a lot,” Priya said and Lena smiled. It was so nice not to have to argue every point with people who had no idea what they were talking about. Priya was one of the most knowledgable people on the planet when it came to nanotech, but she never made Lena feel like she wasn’t on her team, as if she had something important to contribute. She almost said something about it but Priya was typing furiously and accessing her VR with quick eye flicks and haptics at the same time so Lena let her concentrate. “I can’t control them, but maybe I can…” Priya trailed off as she accessed something in her VR feed. Lena checked her own hyperspace as a text came through from Priya and they started working together to send Lex’s nanites the command to stop, putting them into a kind of standby. 

“Could you guys maybe share?” Kara said and Lena gave her a look that could melt steel. “I mean, is there anything I can do?” That was better, but not by much. She understood that Kara needed to be actively helping or doing something, but sometimes the most useful thing one could do was get the fuck out of the way.

“They’re trying to communicate with the nanites Lex hacked, which seem to be still following his original commands. Those nanites have been attacking Lena’s tissues as well as the alien nanites, which have walled them off.” Dr. Ngo’s voice drifted through to Lena and she noted that Dr. Ngo was following their progress in hyperspace so Lena invited her to give her opinion on something physiological that amounted to, “be ready to nuke me if this goes sideways.”

“Exactly.” Priya said, her voice distant as she concentrated. “We’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. We assumed those nanites were under our control or at least not Lex’s. We assumed they were protecting Lena from the alien swarm, not the other way around.” 

“We assumed wrong,” Lena said and quickly coded a patch that would allow her to not just receive sensory information through her system, but to reverse it and use her nervous system to communicate. Hopefully. Maybe there was some universal alien morse code she could learn quickly. “I’m hoping that the alien swarm can understand my primitive attempts to communicate and teach me how to do it correctly.” 

“Is this — is this safe? I mean, is Lena in danger if this doesn’t — ” Kara begins, sounding genuinely concerned for Lena’s welfare. But she was a professional liar, Lena reminded herself.

“What part of, they are already killing me, do you not get?” Lena asked calmly and Kara’s face fell. “The DEO with your help already killed the iXtlanian this swarm belonged to and somehow the interaction of the alien swarm with Lex’s nanites shielded them from our re-hack. Which is what’s actually killing me. Unless you can tell me how to communicate with the swarm, please stop wasting time”

“We’re assuming that communicating with the swarm is going to be a positive or even possible. But I understand that we have to do this,” Dr. Ngo said, but Lena could see that she was already prepping Lena for emergency surgery if this failed and was putting in orders for any meds Lena might need either way. Even if this went well, they had no idea what that actually meant. As far as Lena could tell, she was going to lose her arm either way. Maybe she wouldn’t lose everything else and maybe she could save someone else. “Supergirl, can you see the nanites?”

Kara nodded, her arms still crossed protectively against Lena’s anger. 

“Would you be able to use your laser vision to destroy them if they react in a way we didn’t anticipate? I’m going to assume that you can be more precise than our tools.”

“Yes.” Kara said and stared at Lena’s arm then directly into Lena’s eyes before looking away. Lena wondered if Kara understood that this meant she may actually have to destroy Lena’s arm, but decided it didn’t matter and she didn’t want to argue about it with the superhero. “But it would help to be in the room. I don’t know what these barriers will do.” Kara gestured at the transparent barrier and Lena worried for a moment that this was a lie, another way for Kara to get at Lena because hadn’t she seen Supergirl user her laser vision to cut through steel like it was nothing? But what did it matter, Lena thought and started the permissions and protocols to allow Kara into her isolation.

“It’s about fine control,” Kara said and frowned. “Not much room for error with this and I don’t want some tricky refraction problem complicating things.” 

“We’ll get you some protective gear and —“ Dr. Ngo said, but Kara interrupted her with a soft smile.

“No need, Dr. Ngo. I’ll be fine. If Lena’s okay with it.”

Dr. Ngo’s eyes widened for a moment then she nodded. “Of course. I forgot to consider your unique physiology.” She turned to address Lena in the isolation room. “Lena? Are you okay with this?”

“No. But let her in anyway please,” Lena said and winced as her arm started to throb again. Whatever the alien swarm was trying to communicate, they were getting louder and more desperate.


	7. Chapter 7

One of the strangest things for Kara, besides the fact that Lena still looked at her like she was a villain, was the way Kara felt like an outsider in her (former) best friend’s company. And to watch Lena, Priya, Dr. Ngo and the rest of the team interact in ways that were familiar to Kara from working with DEO teams in the past, but not be a part of it was difficult, but more striking was how different it was. They completed each other’s thoughts, spoke in an obviously familiar shorthand that was like their own hybrid techno-medical-geek language, and they seemed to care about each other and everyone else who might be affected by the nanites the DEO had unleashed, real or hypothetical. Their relationship wasn’t just professional, but personal. Friendly even. This feeling of belonging to a group, a friendly team, used to be familiar to Kara, but lately she hadn’t felt a part of any team she was working with even when the team included her beloved sister. Every bit of caring and personal attachment had been eradicated from their interactions in the name of professionalism or efficiency and she felt ridiculously jealous that she would never have a chance to be a part of Lena’s team. And that she never had even before the disaster that brought them to this isolation ward because of the DEO’s paranoia, which had become Kara’s doubt. Which just made her think about how Lena had gotten here, how that detachment that was now expected from every DEO team meant that Kara hadn’t even questioned that Alex’s team contained people she’d never seen before. And Kara hadn’t even thought to question it because it was the new normal. One of those strangers had shot Lena. And worse, Kara’s intel had given him the cover he needed to rationalize shooting Lena. How could she ever expect Lena to trust her again? But how could Kara survive if she didn’t?

Kara consciously tried to calm down. She needed to focus for Lena. 

She watched Lena’s face go soft again as she and Dr. Somasundurum joked about something that was obviously a familiar source of teasing. Kara watched and ached to be someone Lena felt comfortable with again, someone Lena trusted. She knew that part of that softness was the painkillers Lena needed to simply function, but she also knew that Lena hardened into the CEO mask whenever she had to speak to Kara. The CEO mask that had caused so many problems, so much mistrust from Alex and the DEO. The CEO mask that she was beginning to understand as a necessary front for Lena who dealt with so much toxic abuse and prejudice every day. For too long, Kara had assumed that the CEO side of Lena was a problem Lena needed to solve. That she didn’t need that mask anymore if she had Kara and the Superfriends. As if Kara’s support would mean Lena no longer needed that CEO mask. She was beginning to understand just how wrong she’d been and just how disrespectful. Kara didn’t need to move in Lena’s dangerous world and when she did, Kara had her superpowers and the DEO to fall back on. Lena had only herself. And now, apparently, the Aunties. Kara’s dream that she would be Lena’s white knight, that Lena would be able to be her softest, loveliest self all the time because Kara was around, was selfish. 

Someone had asked Kara once why she didn’t wear a mask as Supergirl, and she’d told them she wanted to be her real self as Supergirl. She didn’t want to hide who she was when she was being a hero. But of course, that was wrong. Supergirl was just as much a mask as Kara Danvers, or as CEO Lena Luthor. Kara didn’t know who she was anymore. Was she Supergirl, or Kara Danvers, or Kara Zor-El?

Except when she looked at Lena. Then something settled inside her. Even when Lena couldn’t bear to look at her while they were sharing a small room, an isolation ward, Kara felt connected. Kara studied Lena’s carved jawline, her eyes flashing angry green and gray, the contrast of her dark hair and pale skin, and everything aligned exactly right. She had a brief memory of interfacing directly, mentally with the navigation system that guided her pod to earth, and the incredible feeling of profound relief and rightness as the navigation system locked onto a safe trajectory that spanned light years. Looking at Lena, being near her, felt like that. Like her life’s trajectory finally locked down and right, everything slipping into the perfect groove and orbit. And she’d ruined it. Because she’d never trusted that her Lena and the CEO of L-Corp were the same person. She’d never truly given her trust to Lena but expected her to trust Kara implicitly.

Lena looked up at Kara briefly and Kara understood that Lena was actually looking at her and not internal screens for the first time since she’d entered the isolation ward. 

“If this goes wrong, I need to know that you’ll do the right thing,” Lena said, her voice low, almost a whisper. Kara thought they were talking about Lena’s arm and Lex’s nanites, which they’d already discussed. “I need you to make sure that nothing gets out of here. Nothing.”

“Lena,” Kara nearly cried because she understood what Lena was asking.

Lena shook her head and looked away. “You know what will happen if a hybrid of Lex’s nanites gets out of this room and starts reproducing. Everyone onboard is dead. We don’t know how far they could spread. And there’s only one way to make sure they’re all fried.” Lena pointed to her eyes and back to Kara’s.

Kara looked up to find Ava Lance standing on the other side of the tempered glass watching them as the team of doctors worked behind her. Was this why Ava was here on this timeline?

Ava nodded and Kara closed her eyes reminding herself that Ava Lance couldn’t read her mind. She considered arguing with Lena or giving some reassurance that it wouldn’t be necessary, but of course, Lena knew the possibilities. Lena knew and had chosen to ask Kara to make sure the threat was destroyed even if it meant killing Lena. And Lena was asking Kara to help her. She was willing to trust Kara with this and Kara wasn’t going to let her down again. Kara nodded once at Lena.

“But I will try everything else possible before I do that,” Kara said. Lena’s nod in response was barely perceptible, but Kara saw. It tore Kara apart that the only thing they could agree on was Kara killing Lena as a last resort. It made her feel like she’d been injected with kryptonite. Lena’s jaw was clenched, her lips almost white with stress even with the opiates and Kara understood that this meant she was terrified. Even in this tiny room, separated from everyone she cared about, alone with the one person who had betrayed her, Lena was trying to keep her fear under control and invisible for everyone else. Even though she might very well die within the next few hours, Lena didn’t appear to be upset or even worried. Lena was protecting everyone else at her own expense. A real hero. No superpowers necessary. Kara had always talked about how strong and brave Lena was, but she had never understood the depth of it. 

Kara couldn’t stop thinking about what it would mean if Lena was gone, if Kara had to be the one to kill her. Because if being around Lena felt like that moment with the navigation computer and Lena was her life’s trajectory, her orbit, that meant…. It hit Kara like a meteor strike.

_Oh, Rao._

There was a myth on Krypton taught to every child about a binary star system in a perfect non-decaying orbit. A pair of stars visible in the Kryptonian night sky even though for years they looked to Krypton like one star, their orbits aligned. It was, of course, a metaphor for a particular and rare kind of love that transcended and pre-dated the matrix match system. It was the kind of love that bound two people together in a way that nothing else could unbind. Even the two stars locked in orbit. Two stars that could never touch.

“Oh Rao,” Kara choked out loud. “We’re the binary star system.”

Lena looked up at her alarmed although she couldn’t have any knowledge of the myth Kara was speaking of. 

“Lena, we’re going to start the treatment. I’ve sent you the protocol. If you see anything we need to change, let me know now.”

Lena closed her eyes and nodded once before opening her eyes again in that unfocused way that meant she was accessing her hyperspace. 

“Supergirl, here’s what we’re doing unless Lena has any changes.” A list and diagram appeared on the screens embedded in the tempered glass and Kara tried to give it all of her attention, but she couldn’t stop thinking about losing Lena. But she needed to focus. Kara spent so much energy slowing herself down, ensuring that she didn’t superspeed around humans physically or mentally that she sometimes had to remind herself that she could hyperfocus when necessary. It took its own kind of focus to let herself and her thoughts run that fast, to let herself be Super when she’d spent years training herself not to, but this was the time. So, she let her superspeed surface and ran through the notes and presentation in what must have looked like a flash to the humans around her. She ended the presentation and gave herself a few endless nanoseconds to process it. And that’s when she noticed the flickering again, from the iXtlan swarm. It wasn’t random, but she couldn’t find a pattern she could translate. That didn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt at communication. 

Focusing again, Kara forced herself to slow down into the everyday speed of humans. There was always an adjustment although Kara usually played it off or simply acted unphased for the humans around her. But it was like being trapped in glue until she adjusted. It was claustrophobic and she took a breath to remind herself that she wasn’t trapped, she was alive and breathing. 

“The swarm is trying to communicate,” Kara said before she could totally adjust so it came out rushed and breathless, but Lena seemed to understand her perfectly. 

“Can you understand it?”

Kara stared at the arm and thought about optical interfaces on computers, the flickering of lasers to communicate in binary. This was similar but not any binary code she could understand. Knowing the iXtlans it wasn’t binary at all. 

“I…I think…,” she looked up at Lena’s green eyes, at the way they were focused on Kara but still seemed to be focused at least partially inward on the hyperspace that was invisible to Kara. “It’s flickering in patterns I can’t translate,” Kara said. “Why would it do that unless…”

Lena seemed to jump ahead of her, understanding immediately that it might be an attempt to communicate directly with her or indirectly via hyperspace. 

“But why can’t I see it? Is this a superpowers thing?” Lena asked and Kara explained that she only saw it with Superspeed then had to explain that her thoughts sped up as well. Kara could see that Lena had so many questions she wanted to ask but stuck to the immediate concerns. 

Lena stared at the device on her arm but shook her head. Kara could tell from her eyes and her heart rate that she was dialing up the hyperspace as she stared at her arm. “I still don’t see anything.” 

“I think it might be the containment device,” Kara said, and Lena nodded, still staring at her arm. 

“Priya, what do you think?” Lena asked without taking her eyes off her arm. “Should we go ahead and take it off?”

The mics in the room as well as the PA system were state of the art, but it created a strange lag and feedback loop in Kara’s brain. She could hear Priya’s voice before the intercom relayed it and it sounded like a creepy echo to her superpowered ears. She heard Priya sigh dramatically then type more, then sigh again. 

“I think,” Priya began then laughed. “I think at this point, we’re fucking guessing and honestly Lena, it’s your call. But I will say that releasing the containment device can’t do more harm. Probably. The alien nanites have already gone systemic. And we have failsafes in place.” Priya’s voice suddenly hardened. “We’ll be here for you no matter what.” 

Kara had never been more thankful that Lena had such good friends or colleagues or whatever these women were to Lena. This was what she’d always wanted for Lena and herself and for the Superfriends even if she had no idea how to even imagine it. And it was painful to realize that the reason she and Lena hadn’t had this was Kara.

Lena closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before releasing it and Kara unconsciously mirrored her. She was used to reading Lena or trying to read Lena, so she was familiar with the deep conflict going on behind those closed eyes. Of all the humans Kara had met, Lena seemed to get closest to superspeed in terms of her thought processes and Kara watched that incredible mind grind through possibilities. 

Lena’s eyes opened suddenly, her jaw set and Kara knew what she was going to say before said it. “Let’s do it. Get this thing off me and let’s make contact,” Lena said and Dr. Ngo and Priya laughed. Kara wanted to laugh but she was too terrified of what could happen next. 

Priya and Dr. Ngo began putting on hazmat suits before they let Kara and Lena know that they were putting in the orders to the containment device to disassemble itself and to Lex’s nanites to stand down. They stopped suddenly and looked to Lena. 

“The Aunties have been apprised. The countdown clock will start at 10 seconds when you give the order, Dr. Luthor.”

Kara took a deep breath and watched Lena do the same. 

“Let’s fucking go,” Lena said quietly and threw some invisible switch somewhere in hyperspace because the containment device began to disengage and fold in on itself. As Lena’s arm or what was left of it was revealed, her eyes widened, her head cocked to the side like she always did when she was thinking deeply about something. “Oh, wow,” Lena mumbled and that’s when everything descended into a barely controlled chaos as Lena started seizing, every monitor in the room beeping and screaming alarms.


End file.
